Taxpayer Losses Roll In From the Bailout

The US Government is beginning to acknowledge what most people have known for the past year - the 2009 bailouts were the equivalent of flushing money down the toilet.

"The Treasury Department said Monday it will lose $1.6 billion on a loan made to Chrysler in early 2009. Taxpayer losses from bailing out Chrysler and General Motors are expected to rise as high as $34 billion, congressional auditors have said.

Treasury said Monday that Chrysler repaid $1.9 billion of a $4 billion loan, which was extended before the company filed for Chapter 11. The government hopes to get another $500 million from the company that emerged from bankruptcy, Chrysler Group LLC."

The 2009 bailouts of Chrysler and GM were always about protecting union jobs, union contracts and union benefits. Nothing more, nothing less.

Making below-market loans to loss-making companies with astronomical labor costs and that have made little effort to reign those same costs was never a sound idea, and had failure written all over it from the beginning.

Unfortunately the loss reported here is nothing compared to what taxpayers will see from the amounts extended to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the rest.

This titanic waste of taxpayer money is yet another in the long list of reasons that the politicians that voted for the 2009 federal bailouts, Democrat or Republican, should be tossed out of office as soon as they stand for reelection.